Vilnius NATO summit will likely be a flop

Any decision on NATO membership is between the 31 Allies and aspirant country. And so, in this case, when it comes to Ukraine, we have been discussing with our NATO Allies and Ukraine how we can collectively support Ukraine’s aspiration for Euro-Atlantic integration.

Ukraine would have to make reforms to meet the same standards as any NATO country before they join. President Biden thinks that Ukraine can do that.

– Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary

​US President Joe Biden will spend three days in Europe at the NATO Summit in Vilnius scheduled for July 11 and 12. The main topic will be Ukraine and where to go from here.

Ukraine is pushing for either immediate NATO membership or actionable security guarantees from NATO. But Ukraine’s position is undermined by the failure of the counteroffensive against Russia, and the failure of its attempts – via sabotage, assassination and lethal drones aimed at the Kremlin – to destabilize the government of President Vladimir Putin. Now Ukraine is saying it needs NATO air power to be able to win its war.

It will be very hard to get a NATO consensus on the road ahead, no matter how much arm twisting Washington uses on its European partners.

Europe is already in a recession thanks to the Covid catastrophe, the sanctions on Russian energy and the huge unemployment levels, which impact recent immigrants. The result of all that is social unrest across Europe. France is already experiencing a serious revolt, and while the French situation has eased in the past few days, it will come back.

Meanwhile, the German government coalition​ is steadily losing popular support and the AfD, Germany’s right-wing party, is now the second most popular party in the country. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his coalition partners don’t know what to do: They may try banning AfD as a last-ditch effort.

Italy is also far from out of the mess. The country has a conservative leadership but is being battered by unprecedented waves of immigrants coming from the Middle East.

Europe is out of money and out of bullets. It is not in a mood to give a blank check to Ukraine or risk a bigger war that might spread into Europe. President Biden will have a hard time trying to squeeze more from the Europeans.